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Child Soldiers in Liberia:
History, Horror, and Hope
“Late one evening, a ten-year-old with a pistol came, alone, into our house. He told my husband his commander was hungry and wanted one of our chickens. While my husband was catching the hen, that boy sat down to wait. He was thin and exhausted. I brought him a biscuit and water. He said he was tired and weak and as he left with the chicken turned to me and said, thank you, mam.
Later my neighbors criticized me for giving him that biscuit. I said I didn't care if he was a rebel or not. He's still somebody's child. Maybe he was abducted. God knows what they've done to him. I wanted to hide that boy and take him with us as we fled and just knew he would've come with us if he'd had the chance. I could see he wasn't happy.”
Zainab, 24
Human Rights Watch Interview, Freetown, Sierra Leone, May 20, 1999
The UN estimates that at any one time there are more than 300,000 children (child being defined as any person 17 and under) fighting in armed government forces and armed opposition forces around the world in more than 30 countries including El Salvador, Columbia, Cambodia, Mozambique, and Kosovo. Some of the worst use and abuse of children has occurred during the brutal civil war from 1989-2003 in Liberia that has left the country’s infrastructure in shambles. Not only were Liberia’s children subjected to the usual terrors of war: widespread death, starvation, loss of schools, displacement, and uncertainty, but as many as 20,000 children not only faced beatings, mutilation, death, and rape, but they were forced or coerced into committing atrocities such as rape, mutilation, and murder. Many times the victims of these atrocities were civilian men, women, and children.
An entire generation of children in Liberia has known nothing but war for much of their lives. It is easy to give up on them and write them off as part of the unfixable damage caused by poverty, unrest and deep-seeded ethnic and governmental hate. Because child soldiers are a relatively recent phenomenon, there is not much information on the long term consequences of soldiers fighting at the young ages of Liberia’s child soldiers. However, lessons learned during the brief ceasefire in Liberia in 1997 and from rehabilitation efforts in countries such as El Salvador and Angola suggest that there are rays of hope in a community-based approach to rehabilitation. The quote from Zainab refers to a child of Sierra Leone—where child soldiers faced almost identical experiences in war as Liberian children—but it contains an important idea: treat these children as victims, not as wicked, evil killers, or all is truly lost.
Statement of Purpose:
While the use of children as soldiers is a widespread problem, and the situation of child soldiers in Sierra Leone is very similar to the situation in neighboring Liberia, in this paper I will focus on the plight of child soldiers in Liberia. The goal of this paper is to give the reader a good understanding of the roots of the civil war in Liberia, why children were chosen to fight this war, the unimaginable hardships that boy and girl soldiers faced, and the challenges of rehabilitating and reconstructing the lives of these children now that the long war is over. In the end, the reader will understand the past history, recent horror, and rays of hope for the future of Liberia’s war-scarred children.
Research Methods:
This research paper is a qualitative analysis of information from a number of websites and both paper and online versions of human-rights-specific magazines/journals. Most valuable to the construction of this paper was the fifty page report from Human Rights Watch titled “How to Fight, How to Kill: Child Soldiers in Liberia.” This report contained excerpts from interviews with more than forty Liberian children, all conducted between August and November 2003. This report was useful not only for its timeliness but also for the words of the children that are so much more effective in conveying the reality of war in Liberia than any summary.
The Numbers:
Before delving into the more personal aspects of the child soldiers, it is important to understand the situation on a higher level by examining the numbers involved. More than half of Liberia’s war ravaged population is under the age of 18. Of the 1.4 million children, it is estimated that as many as 15,000 to 20,000 have served as child soldiers in the Liberian civil war. According to a study report funded by the Ministry of Japan in 2001:
Of the 4,306 child soldiers (20% of the total number of fighters demobilized), the majority were between 15 and 28 when they turned in their guns. Of those 17 and under, majority 69% were between the ages of 15 and 17 followed by 27% between the ages of 12-14. About 4% were 10 or 11 with the remaining children, less than 1%, aged 9 years below or as young as 6. The fact that 69% of the child fighters were between 15 and 17 when they disarmed, it can be concluded that they were as young as 10 or 12 when they joined. In addition, a significant portion of those demobilizing as adults and who are now in the range of 18 to 22 would have been children when they joined. However, it is important to note that when reviewing data that it describes only those fighters who demobilized and such, not truly reflecting the composition of the fighting force as a whole (Deng, Liberia 2).
The study also concludes that:
The typical child soldier in Liberia was a boy in primary school when he joined the faction (s). After spending a considerable time of 3-5 years fighting, he disarmed when he was between the ages of 15 and 17, placing him between the tender ages of 8 to 12 when he first picked up as gun. It would however appear from the data collected so far that not all factions made equal use of child soldiers (Deng, Liberia 5).
Because the most recent outbreak of fighting just ended in August of 2003, the most recent numbers regarding child soldiers are not yet available, but are expected to be comparable.
Armed Conflict in Liberia: a Brief History[1]
The roots of Liberia’s civil war, and it’s consequences for children, go as far back to the country’s founding. Liberia was founded in 1847 by freed American slaves. The new settlers, known as Americo-Liberians for 133 years, subsequently controlled the republic. They ran their new country like a colony, establishing a feudal structure with all social, economic, and political power in their hands. In the name of this Christianizing and civilizing mission, the indigenous population—who outnumbered their colonists by twenty to one—were subjected to a wave of abuse, including forced labor, disenfranchisement, and exclusion from the coastal, enclave community, all of which led to their impoverishment and cultural alienation while the ruling class prospered.
By the 1970s, however, this once unassailable power structure was beginning to show sign of crumbling as a new constituency of disaffected, often foreign educated, Liberians, as well as schools of indigenous technocrats, joined forces in various opposition groups and began voicing their demands for reform. Their dissatisfaction culminated in 1979 with the “rice riots,” a 2000-strong protest, sparked off by a 50 percent increase in the local staple, which turned to mayhem when police began firing into the crowd, killing more than one hundred protestors. It was growing discontent that paved the way in 1980 for the military coup that brought Samuel Doe, a Krahn from Tuzon, to power. Although he himself later became a symbol for greed and corruption, the new president’s bloody debut was initially welcomed by the majority of Liberians as an end to more than a century of colonization.
The years that followed were marked by mounting unrest due to an increasingly Krahn-dominated authoritarian regime that promoted the joint militarization and ethnically based politics and reigned over a sagging economy characterized by bourgeoning inflation and growing unemployment. Against this background, the other ethnic cliques began plotting their own rise to power, culminating in 1985 with a brutally suppressed coup attempt by Thomas Quiqonkpa, an ethnic Gio from Nimba County. After murdering Quiwonkpa, Doe’s soldiers, the Krahn dominated Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) began a bloody campaign of reprisal killings, mainly targeted at Gios and Manos, a closely related group that resides in the same region of Liberia.
Most recently, over the last fourteen years, Liberians have known little but warfare. The conflict began in December of 1989 when rebel leader Charles Taylor invaded Nimba County from the Ivory Coast. They called themselves the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). The AFL responded with a ruthless counterinsurgency campaign, indiscriminately killing civilians, burning villages, raping women, and looting. In response, NPFL ranks swelled with the long-victimized Gios and Manos, many of whom were boys orphaned during the waves of reprisal killings or simply enraged by the attacks against their people. Meanwhile, the NPFL was conducting its own reign of terror on civilians and suspected supporters of the Doe regime, primarily members of the Krahn and Maningon group. By 1990, the rebel group had over-taken every military position except Monrovia and the capital city of Liberia.
What ensued was a slow burning seven years of war fuelled by the formation of one ethnic-based rival group after another. By 1992, the NPFL splinter group, the Independent National Patriotic Front (INFL), which captured and killed Doe, had already reached its zenith and faded. But the United Liberation Movement for Democracy (ULIMO), formed by Liberian refugees in Sierra Leone who had been loyal to Doe, were making gains from across the border into southwestern Liberia. In 1993, the Liberia Peace Council (LPC), a largely Krahn offshoot of the AFL, challenged the NPFL and gained significant control over the southeast.
From 1989-1997, there were numerous failed efforts to bring the country into peace. These eight years are marked by the blood of brutal ethnic killings and massive abuses against the civilian population. Thousands of Liberian men, women, and children were killed and subject to torture, beatings, rape, and sexual assault. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, “[this abuse] resulted in massive displacement inside and outside the country. Although the conflict was rooted in historical grievances stretching back more than 100 years, the brutal tactics employed from 1989 to 1997 including the targeting of particular ethnic groups by Taylor’s NFPL, the AFL, and later the ULIMO were previously unknown in Liberian history” (Tate 7). Finally, in 1997, a ceasefire was negotiated. Soon after, Charles Taylor, the former head of the NPFL, was elected president of the country.
Unfortunately, the Taylor government was rife with corruption and abuse, further widening the divisions and deepening popular resentments caused by civil war. State power was regularly used for the personal enrichment of government officials with little or no accountability to the Liberian citizenry. The LURD incursion from Guinea, which began in 2000, was the fifth serious outbreak of violence in Liberia since Taylor’s election and launched Liberia back into four more years of civil warfare. In August 2003, a negotiated ceasefire, the departure of Charles Taylor from office and the country, and the deployment of regional and later international peacekeepers have brought an end to major conflict, although fighting and human rights abuses persist in areas outside the U.N.’s control.
Why Children?
The use of children as soldiers dates to the start of the conflict in 1989 (Verhey 8). Taylor’s NPFL became infamous for the abduction and use of boys to increase the size and strength of the forces. Other Liberian fighting factions soon followed suit, and this tactic was eventually adopted by other groups in West Africa (including neighboring Sierra Leone). Boys were favored because their immaturity made them more likely to take risks and less likely to question authority. Also, young boys—particularly ones with little or no education—didn’t always understand the war so they could be indoctrinated with beliefs more easily than an adult. They could be made to believe that looting, stealing, and other activities were just games. Also, when enticed with proper incentives such as promotion and food, boys were eager to prove themselves.
The prevalence of lightweight arms made it possible for small boys to be just as effective fighters as grown adults; strength and power are not required in the simple pulling of a trigger. Children could also be assigned to guard positions because when one his holding an AK47, he has authority no matter how old he is. Additionally, many of the boys chosen for non-armed positions were still at an age where they readily accepted the word of authority.
The use of girl soldiers started around this same time. Many girl soldiers were abducted during this time as well, although they were rarely referred to as soldiers and didn’t think of themselves as such. They were forced to be servants as well as sexual slaves to male soldiers of all ages. Later, the oldest and strongest teen girls were supplied with arms and expected to fight along side their male counterparts.
Recruitment by Force:
Although there are no precise numbers available, interviews by groups such as Human Rights Watch and UNICEF relief workers suggest that the majority of the children picked up by armed forces on all sides of the conflict were recruited by force. They were picked up during recruitment drives and during the capture of territories. Sadly, many children were forced to join warring factions while they were seeking stability at internally displaced persons (IDP) camps.
The NPFL used child soldiers extensively in groups known as Small Boys Units (SBUs) in the 1990s. During the brief period of ceasefire from 1997-2000, many children left the forces. Some left to go to rehabilitation centers while others tried to go back to their old lives as students or working odd jobs. Unfortunately, many children in both categories were rounded up again (against their will) during the LURD incursion. Seventeen-year-old Charles Q described his involvement in a Human Rights Watch interview at Bushrod Island on November 1, 2003:
Last year, I was still in school and on my way home to Congo town (Monrovia). There were government forces in my neighborhood. They had just come in pickup trucks and forced us to go with them to Lofa. That day, I had just left school, put down my books and was outside. They told us ‘we are looking for people to fight,’ not really asking you, just picking you up. There was no choice (Verhey 15).
Another child, Morris C., told a similar story in a Human Rights Watch interview in Monrovia on September 2, 2003:
I am from Bomi but my family fled to Bushrod Island a few years ago. I was fifteen when I was caught and made to fight. I was on my way to school around 8:30 in the morning when I was caught at Point 4 junction. Other children wearing yellow t-shirts with Jungle Fighter written on the back forced us at gunpoint into the trucks. They said I had to join them to fight to protect Monrovia (Verhey 15).
As a result of these raids, many parents stopped sending their children to school and kept them at home.
Government forces weren’t the only ones recruiting children with force. LURD used similar tactics. They recruited from IDP camps as well as from refugee camps often exchanging gunfire with nearby government forces in the process. In early 2003, MODEL split from the LURD and began capturing town in eastern Liberia, initially operating from bases in western Cote d’Ivoire (Deng, Liberia 3). MODEL used the same methods to recruit children as LURD and the government forces. Ellen S., who later became a female commander, told Human Rights Watch, “[LURD] can force you, you can say no, but they carry you or they can beat you to death” (Tate 11) in an interview conducted on October 26, 2003 in Montserrado County.
Voluntary Recruits:
Not all children were physically forced to join armed forces. There are three major reasons why some children chose to fight in the Liberian civil war: revenge, escape from abuse, and lack of other alternatives.
Some chose to join to avenge mistreatment by another group. Seventeen-year-old Eric G. explained to Human Rights Watch in October of 2003 that he joined the LURD to avenge the brutal treatment that both he and his family experienced at the hands of government soldiers:
After government militias beat and slapped me and held me in dirty water. On July 6, seven militia men came to my house, they tied my elbows behind my back and beat me. They raped my mother and two young sisters in front of me. My youngest sister is sixteen years old. The seven of them took turns with them and I was forced to watch. So, I had to go and fight them to revenge my mother and sisters (Tate 12).